Unexpected Visitor

Day 122

“Do we know her?” asks my husband motioning with his head towards the street.   

I look out the front window and see a mom with two young children parking her wagon in our yard and walking towards the front door. 

“I don’t,” I say.  Her kids look too young to be selling Girl Scout cookies.  “Maybe it’s our new neighbor?”  I call upstairs, “Come on, boys!  Someone’s at the door!” 

The boys barrel down the steps taking two and three at a time before sliding into the entry and towards the door.  I open it just as the three visitors step onto the front porch. 

“Hi?” the stranger starts.  “We just moved in down the street and wanted to thank you for the note.”  The boys and I dropped off a card and baked brownies to welcome the family a few weeks back.  After peeking through the front windows and not spying any furniture and getting no answer to our incessant knocking, we’d left the note and decided it was best to take the brownies home and eat them.  (What could we do?  We couldn’t leave them there to get stale, right?)

“Come in!”  I open the door wider and the mom and her kids enter.  My kids go into a Broadway performance.  I. plays the new mom a song on the piano before insisting on showing her his room and the poster he completed on Thomas Edison.  A. starts jumping on the couch to make her little ones laugh.  The dog wags a welcome and someone finds the guinea pig. 

“Welcome to the show!” I joke.

We stay in the house for a bit but the pull of the unseasonably warm winter weather is too much.  The boys show her little ones the tree house.  We chat as the kids run happily around the yard.  An hour later (we’ve lost track of time), she glances at her watch and insists on heading home to see if her husband is home from work. 

“Do you mind giving me your email?”  I tell her about Montgomery Moms, a group that connects moms of young kids with organized play groups and activities, and our neighborhood book club and invite her to join both.  We agree that I’ll pick her up on Tuesday night to take her to a meeting. 

“It’s always nice when you’re new to not walk in alone,” I say.  She agrees. 

What a fun, unexpected visit!  Her kids may be a little young for my boys to play with but I think I might have found myself a new friend.